


Hard-light Belongs to the People

by LilGayCunt



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Espionage, Eventual Romance, Morally Grey Characters, Swearing, Trans Female Character, because fuck you i feel like it, hardlight devlopment, thriller tropes, vishkar development
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26885713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilGayCunt/pseuds/LilGayCunt
Summary: An Overwatch engineering intern gets recruited by Blackwatch and pulled into a life of international espionage and criminal activity. What's a civil engineer to do but fight for her life, and the right for humanity to have hard-light while they're at it?
Kudos: 2





	Hard-light Belongs to the People

**Author's Note:**

> I started another thing b/c I couldn't stop thinking about the implications of hard-light. I might actually follow through with this one, if only to make hard-light and Vishkar lore. Because BOY, is there a lot to unpack considering how little lore exists on it

Everything has gone to shit. Fuck Commander Reyes, fuck this ‘internship’, and fuck Vishkar. Alma clutches the old portable drive in her palm, sprinting through the halls of Vishkar’s Engineering Wing. Dress shoes ping off the pristine white floors, as flyers and bulletins pinned to walls and office doors flutter past her. On a normal day, this hard-drive would have homework, some music, maybe a pirated movie or two. But the data on it now would warrant much, much more legal repercussion than a pirated copy of _Hero of my Storm_. It may, or may not, have Vishkar secrets. Truth be told, she didn’t know exactly.

However, if the pulse rounds pounding the walls around her were any indication, it must be something juicy. They turn the final corner, chest heaving with exertion. Not for the first time, she wishes she didn’t have to dress up for the stupid Vishkar Tech Showcase- the monkey suit makes it really hard to breathe when you’re being chased by armed soldiers.

The second to last door opens with a woosh, and she leaves the Engineering Wing behind. Ahead, an open courtyard surrounded by the entrances to other development wings, the second floor opposite of her _conveniently_ has a catwalk for vishkar soldiers to shoot from. Alma counts at least fifteen of them before they dive to hide behind the nearest secretary desk. Pulse rounds wizz past, one singing hair as she gracelessly tumbles behind the desk. 

The thudding of marching boots ricochet from the Engineering Wing are closer than ever, now. Alma has seen enough action movies to know they’re pinned down; she can’t rush the front exit while the guards on the second floor lay into her, and they can’t wait much longer before the guards behind shoot her like a sitting duck. Now, in a movie, the protagonist would whip out their firearm of choice and shoot their way out like a badass. Alma idly plays with the hard-drive, stomach sinking.

She had no such skill, and no such gun. The only things she had was the drive, the ‘Welcome to The Vishkar Engineering and Development Labs!’ brochure, and a communicator. Which, she was told to not use unless absolutely needed. If this didn’t count, nothing else would. She pressed it to her ear, and turned it on.

“Son of a- Now I have to bail your sorry ass-!”. Oh, Reyes was mad. But guess what? So was she! Crazy how that works, huh? 

“Yeah, fuck you too, Reyes! Your plan was shit! Your dumbass helicopter never came, the fucking Staff Room’s skylight was blast proof!” Alma hissed, flinching at the cracking of hard-light. 

“WHO THE FUCK BLAST PROOFS THE STAFF ROOM SKYLIGHT-”. Reyes’ admittedly good point is interrupted by another voice that she couldn’t quite make out. “- _That's_ the lifeline? Fucking hell…” Reyes’ sigh was anything but reassuring.

“What? What’s the plan? I’m literally getting shot at right now-” Chunks of the hard-light desk were starting to fall around her, and the ominous march of Vishakr soldiers was getting much too close.

The response: “When I say go, you’re gonna gun it for the front and get out of there.” 

“...What?” She repeats dumbly.

“GO!”

After a panicked moment, she’s off like a shot. She smoothly vaults the desk (nice), only slightly stumbling on the other side (not so nice), and sees a careening helicopter coming down towards the courtyard (the opposite of nice). At first there's a few shots aimed at her, but as the helicopter makes a sudden veer towards the soldiers, everything starts to turn to chaos. The helicopter initially tears through the scaffolding, but after it hits the building proper the propellers catch a massive chunk of debris, and it explodes in a magnificent blast of debris and flame. None of the guards above are firing now, many are falling as the catwalk collapses, the rest scrambling for any semblance of safety.

Fuck this, fuck Reyes, and fuck Overwatch. Alma sprints towards the front gate like the devil is chasing her. A stray propeller blade hisses just _this_ far behind the nape of her neck, the sound of which definitely be haunting her nightmares. Feet ache with pain as she pounds against pavement now; nearing the gate. 

It is massive; made entirely of hard-light and tightly secured. Alma immediately starts to realize she has no chance of climbing it or breaking through; but luck favors her just this once, and it swings open as she near it with a little beep. Apparently the hacker was the only competent person assigned to this mission, go figure.

Alma passes the threshold of the gate, looking up and down the street. There is in fact, no escape vehicle ready. Nada. Zilch. None. Every vehicle was long ago evacuated. Alma doesn’t even get a chance to say anything before Reyes comes in over the comm. “Shit! Our driver has been compromised- Get out of there agent! We’ll contact you soon.” And the line cuts off. 

Fuck her sideways- she does the only sensible thing, at this point. She runs like the devil in a random direction.

. . . . . . . . .  
  


Alma didn’t speak a lick of Hindi, but a grainy picture of her face blown up on a building sized screen could only mean a few things. She long ago ditched the suit. She borrowed (read: stole) a hoodie, some jeans, and a pair of sunglasses from a local mall. It was only barely a disguise; but it was all she could figure out. She was an engineering intern; not some secret agent spy.

She thought she’d struck the mother load with an internship at Overwatch. Her track record was… not so great. She’d been known to do the majority of projects in the last few hours of a deadline, to various degrees of success. There was also that time that she allegedly stole designs from a competing University’s prime student, Alex Graham. She hadn’t, of course. They simply both happened to read an leaked article from LunarGorilla (a terrible pseudonym for Overwatch’s Winston), which detailed a potential new projection method for particle shields. Neither of them could admit they knowingly resourced a document that had to have breached _some_ Overwatch science and development embargo, and Alex had a research document dated a week prior to any of Alma’s. Procrastination strikes again. That allegation is probably why Reyes reached out to her, hoping she’d be morally grey enough to steal data from Vishkar. Which she was regardless.

Fuck Reyes. This whole mess is his fault. Alma sweats under a black hoodie, hoping to God she can think of a plan to keep her safe long enough to be contacted by Reyes again. She has no contacts here, her face is on every digital billboard in the city, and is just some fuckwit engineer grad that got sucked up into international espionage. Fuck Reyes.

However… dwelling on the situation isn’t nearly as imperative as gathering information. A local TV repair shop has a few ancient LCD screens in the window, one of which is luckily subtitled in english. Alma pulls the hoodie tight around her, and peers through the glass.

“... the fugitive, Alma Baek, is still at large for international crimes against Vishkar and Overwatch. They are aligned with an newly recognized terrorist cell, Talon-”

Overwatch cut ties pretty fast, didn’t they? She supposes they couldn’t openly support her after having stolen Vishkar data, but damn. She got pinned to an international terrorist real quick.

“Until the fugitive is found, all international travel will be investigated, and border control will be tightly patrolled. If you see Alma Baek, please report her immediately to the authorities-” Exits are closed off too, now. This just keeps getting better. Alma walks away from the display before she attracts any undue attention, brain running in overtime to find a solution. 

She turned the communicator off hours ago to preserve a dwindling battery, but surely now Overwatch has their shit together enough to come rescue her, right? Definitely. God help her if they aren’t.

Squatting behind a dumpster in an abandoned alley is the best cover she can manage, as she fumbles with the communicator. It blinks green three times to signal its on, and she takes a deep, hopeful breath as she puts it in her ear.

“Hello? Reyes?” Silence. “Commander Reyes?” The quiet is deafening, fear starts to coil in her chest like a rattlesnake. The coil seizes her when an unfamiliar voice breaks through.

“Such weak encryption. Overwatch can do little to save you now, little bird. You’re best off turning yourself in with the schematics.” The voice is deep, and has a heavy indian accent.

Those spies in thriller movies really deserve more respect. Her mouth went dry and she froze with fear. Remember to breathe, in and out. Pull it together, her life was on the line here!

“You are no _spy_ ,” He spits, “ and you are no agent. Overwatch has abandoned you. Give up now, bird. Nothing faces you but death and prolonged despair, let’s end this quickly, no?”

The few seconds to compose herself gave her the will to do the badass, movie protagonist thing. “Naw, you ain’t shit, go fuck yourself.” Her voice cracked and wavered but still; it was pretty badass for a civil engineer. She then promptly tore the communicator out of her ear, stomped on it, and then again a few times for good measure.

Very cool and collected. She successfully survived being hacked by Vishkar and delivered a badass comeback. Now all that was left was to escape the country by herself. Yeah, that was all. Just… gotta escape without Overwatch’s help. How hard could that be?

Alma turns to leave the alley, gathering her wits for a harrowing escape; perhaps she ought to steal a boat? Not that it matters, there's three figures clad in black, tactical gear staring her down a few meters away. Her mouth runs dry again. Is there an award for a failed escape plan before the plan is even made?

They start to slowly approach her, hands gliding over their hips, towards holstered pistols. “H-Hey, boys! What do you need from me?” She cracks, hoping to God for this just to be a misunderstanding.

The one at the front with a grizzled face holds a hand out to stop the other two figures. He stares her down, saying “We’re here to collect the data from vishkar. We can help you escape from the country if you hand it over.” 

Which is a load of horse shit. They have zero identifying aspects, and there's no way they’re Vishkar or Overwatch. And if they aren’t Vishkar or Overwatch, they’re some other entity that doesn’t need to save face. Anyone in their situation would just gun her down and take the drive. 

“Deal! I can take you to the drop-off point. I wasn’t supposed to take the heat for this- fuck Overwatch, you can have the data.”

“Drop-off point?” He murmurs, “Why would we need to go to a drop-off point? You have the data, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah.” Alma pulls the drive out, hoping they don’t notice her shaky hands, “But it's encrypted as hell, our tech guy is waiting at the drop-off to decrypt it before the drive expires. As a precaution.” Lies. All of it. But she never was the best student, and certainly not a moral one. Lying came easy. The terrorist considers it for a moment, and she feel the tight coils of fear well up in her. Then he nods, the other two looking at each other skeptically.

“Alright”, he says, “Where’s the drop off?” 

  
  


And so, Alma hitched a ride with a (potential) terrorist group to the bay. The ride is uneventful, terrorist 1 and 2 closing her in the center seat of their Terrorist Van™. She presumes the grizzled one is the leader, and he pulls into a parking spot before the bay. A ton of boats line the water, all deactivated and with no one around.

“Okay. I’m going to meet up with my tech guy and give you guys the signal to come in and storm the ship-” She starts.

“Do you think we’re fucking dumb?” The leader snarls, as he cocks a massive rifle that was in the passenger seat. “Tell us which boat, give us the data, and then we leave.”

Keep cool, Alma. “If they see three nondescript terrorists show up they’re going to fucking abandon the mission, obiviously!”She says exasperated, “Look, just give me time to lower their guard enough. I’ll give a signal as soon as he starts decrypting.” She wills the sweat to seep back into the pores they came, as the three silently look at each other.

“Fine. Be quick. Don’t you dare think about ratting us out.” And like that, she’s out of the van, free as a caged bird.

However, Alma was no fool; the guy definitely suspects she was lying, if not outright knowing, and even if she wasn’t, he would totally kill her as soon as the drive is ‘decrypted’. But a chance at escape was better than none.

Alma confidently walks up to a random boat, vaulting onto the deck like she hadn’t a care in the world. She hums to herself as she starts to walk to the cabin. It’s at this point, that she realizes she does not know how boats work. How similar are they to cars, do you think? She’s never even been in one that didn’t use paddles. What the _fuck_ was this plan again?

She barely has time to consider her next steps as a massive explosion erupts from behind. she whips around to see the van she’d hitched a ride in completely erupt in flames, Vishkar soldiers marching in the dozens all along the coast. Dread sets in, and Alma is completely, and royally, fucked.

“Put your hands above your head!”, blares a robotic voice. It isn’t very convincing when one of the soldiers starts firing right after. She hits the deck, hoping for the lip of the boat to provide a few more seconds of cover- when a miracle happens.

The boat roars to life, and starts peeling out of the dock. The cabin door whips open like it was possessed. The robotic vishkar voice is screaming its head off now, hoping against hope she would still yet surrender.

  
  


Like always, Alma does the sensible thing. She runs like hell into the possessed cabin. The door closes behind her softly, as she catches her breath. The room is posh, the center console surrounded by velveted chairs, various paintings of the sea hanging on the walls.

“A real trouble maker, aren’t you, amiga?” A heavily distorted voice asks. Alma whips her head around the room, looking for the voice. The only light in the room is the center console’s purple glow, illuminating the small room. She eyes the console from across the room, spotting an infamous candy skull logo projected on the surface. “Good thing you had me to get you out of trouble.” The voice is clearly coming from the console, but it does little to settle Alma’s nerves.

Alma found it unlikely that whoever was helping her was that terrorist group earlier, and the chances it was overwatch… slim. “Who are you?” She asks, desperate for an answer.

“ _Sombra_.” They supply. Alma could hear the smugness in their voice, but that was hardly an answer. This game of cat and mouse was starting to grate on her nerves.

“... Okay.” Alma replies, pinching her brow. She has a feeling she wouldn’t like whatever came next, but she was flush out of second chances. “I appreciate you saving my life, but why would you help me and risk Vishkar’s anger?”

“A favor, and for us to be… amigas.” That caught Alma by surprise. She had figured Sombra would want the stolen data; what favor could she possibly give? “Friends help friends, after all.”

Alma bit her lip. She couldn’t exactly say no right now; surely Sombra would just turn the boat back around towards Vishkar and her certain death. But owing a favor to random person wasn’t great, either.

Alma decided to bite the bullet and get it over with. “What do you want from me?” The distorted voice gave a pleasant hum.

“A favor, when I ask for it.” There goes ‘biting the bullet’.

“You’re asking me for an IOU?” Alma bit out, exasperated. “I’m just supposed to be at your beck and call until the debt is settled?!”

“I could always turn the boat back to Vishkar~” Sombra sings, Alma’s rejections catching in her throat.

“No!” Alma nearly shouted, but she held it in, sighing deeply. “Fine. A favor… for a favor.”

“Aww, was that so hard hermosa?” Sombra was playing with her food now, and they both knew it. “The ship is set to sail out to Australia. After that, my ‘favor’ is over. I expect you to be ready to deliver yours when asked, amiga. Ahí nos vidrios!” Sombra said cheerfully, the console abruptly changing to a light blue color, the skull fading out.

Owing favors to some random hacker was not how she thought her internship at Overwatch would end, but look where she was. Alma fucking hated Reyes right about now.


End file.
